A Commentary on the Passing Scene by
Robert Paul Wolff
rwolff@afroam.umass.edu

Coming Soon:

The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for "Robert Paul Wolff Kant." There they will be.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for Robert Paul Wolff Marx."

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Archive of Wolff Materials

Monday, August 23, 2010

THE VIOLA

Some while back, I observed that Mozart's favorite instrument was the viola. I took a certain amount of abuse for that observation. This morning, while out and about shopping, I heard a beautiful work on our local classical music FM station which I could easily enough identify as a Mozart piano quartet, but since I am not really familiar with those quartets, I was uncertain whether the instruments were a violin, a viola, a cello, and a piano, or two violins, a cello, and a piano. I listened carefully and persuaded myself that there was indeed a viola in the mix. It was Mozart's First Piano Quartet, it rurned out, and when I got home I checked. A violin, a viola, a cello, and a piano. So, faced with the necessity of replacing one of the instruments of the traditional quartet with a piano, Mozart chose to keep the viola. I rest my case.

About Me

As I observed in one of my books, in politics I am an anarchist, in religion I am an atheist, and in economics I am a Marxist. I am also, rather more importantly, a husband, a father, a grandfather, and a violist.